


When It Stings

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, Canon Related, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, F/M, Kissing, Naked Cuddling, Post-Canon, Post-Coital, Post-Coital Cuddling, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it was easy to forget what his scars meant, what past they told, what wounds they spoke of. Sometimes, she simply didn't think about it.</p>
<p>But when she was reminded, when she was in the space between the next breath with him, it always broke her open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When It Stings

Her slim, sunkissed fingers traced over his scars with a slowness that bordered on teasing, but she was the farthest thing from playful in that moment.

Sometimes, it was easy to forget.

Sometimes, it was simple to grab him, in the dark or otherwise, take no notice of the raised scars of his body. Sure, they were everywhere: over his ribs and back, his face, his legs and arms, but they were a part of him and in those moments, she just wanted to touch all of him all at once. She didn’t differentiate between what was smooth skin and what was scar and what was wound and what was suture. She already knew and accepted that he was a quiltwork of a man, raw meat threaded together. She loved him so she loved that, as well. She wanted _all_ of him: she didn’t pick and choose. 

But it was easy to skim over the knowlege, not bother to isolate what the scars _meant_ when he held her to his chest so close he was almost crushing her, taking all the breath from her body when he kissed her and left her feeling electric.

Marie never took any notice of it, then. And, despite how proud he was of all his self-butchering, how immaculate his stitching was, and all the battle wounds he survived, he didn’t often go about the lab shirtless. He was usually too cold to do so, his poor circulation and massive form making it so that he was almost always in some sort of sweater. 

But in the after, when they were both bare, curled against each other, in the space between the next breath with him, it couldn’t be ignored.

The glow her skin always took on after an orgasm was brighter than usual. She doesn’t know if it was because the room was dark, the moon obliterated in the sky, the curtains thrown open to accept in the pitch of night, or if he had just been particularly good to her, but she was lit up like a candle. His chest was heaving as he breathed hard, his eyes closed, and she was the only source of illumination in the room.

For a brief moment, she can almost imagine his eyes opening, a warning in the green for her not to explore his wounds. He hated seeing her upset, and he had to know that exploring his past aches would certainly put her in lower spirits. 

But she wasn’t sad, not really. She had been in the position too many times in the past to be sad. She was on his chest, her palm resting where she could feel his heart thumping hard, and her other hand was threading through his hair soothingly.

Perhaps he was still too lulled by his own pleasure to notice that the high her soul was on had started diminishing. Maybe his head was still spinning.

Or maybe he simply thought nothing was amiss as she looked over his torso, her entire body acting as a light that hid nothing.

As a girl, she had never imagined he’d break himself open only to stitch himself shut, again. Back then, he had no bolt through his skull and no sutures on his face and no lab coat. He was just Franken. He was the small, thin boy with ruinous, healing hands that she adored. She had wanted to kiss his cheek. She had wanted to hold his hands. It was so innocent, then. 

Well, not always. But she would never allow herself to dwell on the possibility of being where she was in the current moment.

And she certainly never thought he’d end up looking the way he did. No one could predict that he’d get so tall. He was barely a few inches over her when she left for Oceania all those years ago. 

The bolt was the first thing she’d noticed upon coming back. The stitches under his eye were the second.

But having him there, in front of her, pliant and willing for her touch, baring himself to her, she couldn’t help but notice everything else.

She didn’t know why she was taking it to heart, this time. Why was she spending so much time thinking about it? It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him naked, had the chance to explore his body.

It must have been the lack of the moon. With no eyes on her, she felt like they were the only two people who existed. Her fingers kept tracing over the wounds he’d pried open and wouldn’t let heal completely, and she was so preoccupied that she didn’t notice him crack one eye open, observing her. 

After a moment, his lips parted. “You can ask,” he told her, and she jolted, flinging her hand back as though she were a child caught doing something she shouldn’t.

His chuckle was low and amused, a sign that he wasn’t irritated. He had a hard time feeling crappy when he was around her, especially if her healing wavelength was tuned up so high. She couldn’t dial it down after she came for a good ten minutes. Sometimes more. 

Marie’s face felt warm. She felt almost guilty until she processed what he had said. 

The pause was, somehow, not uncomfortable. “Ask?” she inquired, blinking up at him, slowly settling her hand back.

He only closed his eyes once more, relaxing his head back, humming. “If you have questions. Observations are an important part of the scientific method.”

She almost snorted. The dork. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, rolling her eye and going back to skimming his scarwork with the pads of her fingertips. After a few moments, he was certain she wasn’t going to say anything, which was equally as fine with him. 

He just wanted her to know that the offer was there. Not to others, but to her. Perhaps only ever to her.

The whisper was so faint, he almost didn’t hear it.

“…did you do this one?” she asked, voice as quiet as could be, as though she were afraid of the answer. Stein didn’t even have to look to know it was the one across his chest. 

“Yes,” he replied, simply, and at the answer, she moved her free hand from his hair to his chest so that both her palms were tracing downward.

He felt a shiver of pleasure run up his spine. 

“This one?” she asked, rubbing her thumb over a small incision line on his side.

“Yes,” he repeated. Then, after a moment, “I removed my appendix.”

She never nodded. If anything, her voice got lower and lower, softer and gentler the more she opened her mouth.

He felt like everywhere she touched him was somehow lighter. Warmer. Maybe it was an aftereffect of her wavelength. Maybe she was trying to heal wounds long since scarified.

When she brushed her palm over his belly, he almost tensed.

“…here?”

“…No,” he admitted, taking in a deep breath. 

Death, that one had burned. He had to get Spirit’s help in holding his guts together with some soul stitches to patch himself up properly. 

He could feel Marie’s curiosity thrumming in their resonance, something they always naturally fell in. If he were ever to do a thesis on the affects of being sexually intimate with your Meister-Weapon partner, he could safely say that the resonance rate goes through the roof. 

Especially if the sex was good. 

He sighed, resting his massive hand on the back of her head and rubbing his thumb behind her ear.

“A momento from Medusa,” he commented, and he felt her tense up immediately.

Part of him knew it was a bad idea to tell her, but the majority of him also knew that, if she was curious, not answering her would be worse.

“When?” she whispered, her warm breath ghosting over the shiny pink skin that hadn’t healed quite right. He shuddered despite himself, feeling warmed from having Marie so low down on his body, her heat so familiar and positive. 

It took him too long to answer, collecting himself. 

“Kishin revival,” he muttered out, running his fingers through Marie’s long, honey-toned locks. 

“That long ago?”

“Hmmm.”

He relaxed into the bed when she stopped being so tense, but he could feel a residue of her displeasure through their connection. The timeframe must have comforted her, slightly, but not enough. 

One of her arms came around him, worming between his back and the mattress, simply holding him and faintly feeling where the skin on his back had been ruptured when he took a hit for her when they fought Noah, all that time ago.

She took in a shuddering breath. 

Her Meister. Her _partner_. 

He had been torn open. He had torn _himself_ open. He was scar tissue threaded together, held with hard work and countless attempts and a hand that shook in the beginning and grew more steady as time went on. She loved him so much that the thought of him in previous agony gaped inside of her, feeling so fresh it was like _she_ had taken the stab wound. It felt like someone had cut a hole inside of her when she remembered that, for the majority of his wounds, he had to deal with them on his own.

She would never, not in her life, let him suffer like that, again.

Her lips were soft when she pressed them to his belly and she felt him arch to her, pressing his hips up, perhaps encouraging her lower. His gasp wasn’t one of surprise but of pleasure, and she could feel the physical signs of it, as well, but she didn’t move. Instead, she sucked at the skin of his stomach, holding him close as she marked him with a hickie only they would know existed. Her wavelength flared up and she was probably glowing so brightly, if anyone wandered past their window, they’d see nothing but gold. 

Every scar he had told of misery, in the past. Whether in the act of getting them, or closing them. She knew he kept them open as reminders.

That was fine. She could leave marks, too.

She wanted him to have one that was born from affection, and when she pulled away, taking in the reddened flesh she had caused, she set another kiss to his skin, stroking his lower back as she trailed her lips downward. 


End file.
